Zend\Loader

Within Zend Framework applications, it’s often expedient to provide a mechanism for using class aliases instead of
full class names to load adapters and plugins, or to allow using aliases for the purposes of slipstreaming
alternate implementations into the framework.

In the first case, consider the adapter pattern. It’s often unwieldy to utilize a full class name (e.g.,
Zend\Cloud\DocumentService\Adapter\SimpleDb); using the short name of the adapter, SimpleDb, would be much
simpler.

In the second case, consider the case of helpers. Let us assume we have a “url” helper; you may find that while the
shipped helper does 90% of what you need, you’d like to extend it or provide an alternate implementation. At the
same time, you don’t want to change your code to reflect the new helper. In this case, a short name allows you to
alias an alternate class to utilize.

Classes implementing the ShortNameLocator interface provide a mechanism for resolving a short name to a fully
qualified class name; how they do so is left to the implementers, and may combine strategies defined by other
interfaces, such as PluginClassLocator.